DOCSLIB.ORG

Neo-Modernity: a New Framework for Political Reality the Middle Eastern Case

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Neo-Modernity: a New Framework for Political Reality the Middle Eastern Case Neo-Modernity: A New Framework for Political Reality The Middle Eastern Case Vassily A. Kuznetsov Vassily A. Kuznetsov, PhD in History Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Head of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies SPIN-RSCI: 8052-7393 IstinaResearcherID (IRID): 3553785 Scopus AuthorID: 57196044428 E-mail: [email protected] Address: 12 Rozhdestvenka Str., Moscow 107031, Russia DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2020-18-2-132-154 Abstract This paper explores the possibility of considering neo-modernism as a framework concept for studying political processes in the Middle East. The study starts with an analysis of the notion of neo-modernity as a new way of treating reality that emerged out of postmodernism as a reaction to its totalizing criticism. A comparative analysis of the main publications on the matter has revealed key features of neo-modernism: the ability to avoid postmodern fragmentariness, problematization of values and meanings, and return to metanarratives. In the political realm, these features manifest themselves in five ways: the search for new political unities; the growing demand for projects of the future and for ideology; the creation of a new political mythology; the use of postmodern tools in political practice; and awareness of the fundamental instability of the current state of affairs. The main features of neo-modernism have been scrutinized with reference to the specific Middle Eastern political reality at the regional, national, and 132 RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS Neo-Modernity: A New Framework for Political Reality social levels. This approach has revealed the search for new regional, sub- regional, and national unities in the Middle East, as well as the creation of new ideologies, often directly related to attempts to devise new national development strategies, and the emergence (and sometimes deliberate engineering) of new elements of political mythologies. Keywords: neo-modernity, postmodernity, the Middle East, the Arab world, Islam hematically and methodologically, this paper is a continuation of my essay published in Russia in Global Affairs a year ago (Kuznetsov, 2019), as well as several earlier works. This article Tpursues two goals: first, it seeks to add new touches to the concept of neo-modernity and, second, it attempts to use it for analyzing current political processes in the Middle East. NEOMODERNITY AS A FRAMEWORK CONCEPT FOR TODAY’S REALITY: HISTORIOGRAPHIC SETTING Although at first glance the word ‘neo-modernity’ does not look particularly original and seems to be almost clear in meaning, the set of ideas it is meant to convey is very difficult to describe. Russian researcher A. Pavlov was probably right when he said that “what could be called the concept of ‘neomodernism’ hardly exists as something well-defined or at least understandable” (Pavlov, 2019, p.195). This is what makes neo-modernity basically different from meta-modernity conceptualized by R. van den Akker and T. Vermeulen (2019, pp.39- 82) and from other variants of postpostmodernism (performatism, altermodernism, digimodernism, automodernism, etc.). For all its drawbacks, this situation certainly gives us obvious advantages: conceptual incompleteness offers ample opportunities for further theoretical pursuits. And yet, it would be appropriate to revisit the writings (there are not so many of them) that draw on the concept of ‘neo-modernity.’ Leaving aside very specific works on architecture, where ‘neo-modernity’ means a certain style characterized by simplicity and functionality VOL. 18 • No.2 • APRIL – JUNE • 2020 133 Vassily A. Kuznetsov (Ciarkowski, 2016), I will focus on those publications whose authors, even while talking about individual cultural phenomena, view neo- modernity as a broader notion. In total, there are about a dozen such texts. The first publication I know of, which used the term ‘neomodernism,’ was an article by art critic Victor Grauer, Modernism/Postmodernism/Neomodernism (Grauer, 1981-82). A decade later, it was followed by American sociologist Edward Tiryakian’s article, Modernization: Exhumetur in Pace in 1991 and his other article, Retinking Modernization: Legacies of Parsons and Hilbert in 1996; L. Vyazmitinova’s review of D. Vodennikov’s 1999 book of poems Holiday; two neo-modernism manifestos published in 2000 by Western painters—one by Guy Denning and the other one, by Arman Bayraktar, André Durand, and Scott Norwood Witts; a 2003 monograph by American sociologist Jeffrey Alexander, The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology, (Russian-language edition 2013); a monograph of literary scholar A. Zhitenev, The Poetry of Neo-Modernism (2012); works by Polish film critics Rafał Syska (2014) and Miłosz Stelmach (2016) dedicated to neo-modern cinema (2012-2016); a manifesto by Russian philosopher and cultural scientist A. Pelipenko (2016) and its review by O. Glukhova (2016); analytical articles posted on the RIAC website by E. Alekseenkova in 2016 (while avoiding this term, she nevertheless refers to articles on neo-modernity and argues with their authors) and by A. Kortunov and I. Gibelev in 2017; a philosophical article by I. Gibelev, Neomodernity as an Opportunity (2018); and finally an article by art historian Michael Eden, Neo-Modernism: Soul Nourishing Renaissance (2018). I deliberately did not include my own texts in this list of publications. Even a cursory look at this list reveals some peculiarities. Firstly, the works mentioned above belong to completely different fields of humanitarian knowledge: philosophy, theoretical sociology, applied political research, literary and art studies. The first works to be published were written by literary scholars and artists. Then followed pub- lications written by sociologists and political researchers, and only later, by philosophers (standing out among them are articles by V. Grauer and 134 RUSSIA IN GLOBAL AFFAIRS Neo-Modernity: A New Framework for Political Reality E. Tiryakian, which were written much earlier than the others and were almost unrelated to them). Such an order is obviously due not only to basically different genres of the publications (from artistic manifestos to monographs), but also to the specificity of different spheres of knowledge, which require different time to comprehend reality and produce texts. Secondly, putting aside Grauer’s article, which stands quite by itself, one can see that most of the texts were published in two waves—in 1991-2003 and 2012-2018, and it seems that the authors of the second wave hardly paid much attention to their predecessors, although some of them knew about their works. Several lines of knowledge continuity can be traced here. For example, J. Alexander mentions E. Tiryakian’s article, and I. Gibelev refers to publications by E. Alekseenkova (2016), A. Kortunov (2017), and V. Kuznetsov (2019), although in his latest article he does not mention them. G. Denning and a group of painters led by A. Bayraktar seem to have known about each other’s manifestos, and M. Eden read both. Finally, A. Zhitenev mentions a review by L. Vyazmitinova. So, here is a typical situation of fragmented knowledge where artists read artists, sociologists read sociologists, etc., but none of them has the whole picture. Presumably, both groups of texts were prompted by a sense of a fundamental change in the surrounding reality and the need to find new mechanisms to explain it. The authors of the first wave were fully aware of this situation. And although they attributed it to different circumstances, explicitly or implicitly it correlated with the events of the late 1980s and early 1990s, which not only put an end to the bipolar system of international relations, but also forced painters and writers to rethink both the surrounding reality and their relations with it. E. Tiryakian understood “neo-modernization” as an urgent need to revive the theory of modernization in the new global political and economic conditions. Jeffrey Alexander notes that in politics neo- modernism has gained power because political revolutions of the last decade have revived a truly heroic narrative, thus expressly defying the postmodern decline (2013, p.572). While exploring the origins of neo-modernity, L. Vyazmitinova speaks about attempts to overcome VOL. 18 • No.2 • APRIL – JUNE • 2020 135 Vassily A. Kuznetsov the “unsupportedness” of postmodernism and the fragmentariness of the author’s “self” caused by it; G. Denning talks about the oblivion of “aesthetic sensitivity” and the diktat of artistic policy and political correctness (this resonates with V. Grauer’s thoughts); and A. Durand states the death of art as such. In general, all these texts have one thing in common: fatigue from postmodern play and the striving for a new sincerity, which was predicted by V. Grauer and which was then extolled by some metamodernists (Eden, 2018), while others preferred to talk about “post-irony” (Constantinou, 2019), contrasting it with the previously discovered “new sincerity” (Kelly, 2010). The authors of the second wave reason differently. A. Pelipenko, in a rather hysterical manner reminiscent partly of the Soviet agitprop of the 1920s and partly of post-Soviet non-mainstream radical publications, predicts an anthropological catastrophe if mankind does not abandon decadent postmodernism (“Down with postmodernism in public life, policy and morals! Down with all its discourses and creations: political correctness, multiculturalism, pacifism, and left-wing liberal ideology!” (2016, p.49)) to turn
Load more

Recommended publications
  • From Postmodernism to Metamodernism
    FROM POSTMODERNISM TO METAMODERNISM: CHANGING PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS IRONY AND METANARRATIVES IN JULIAN BARNES’S A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10 AND ½ CHAPTERS AND THE NOISE OF TIME A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY MELTEM ATEŞ IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE SEPTEMBER 2019 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Yaşar Kondakçı Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. Assist. Prof. Dr. Elif Öztabak Avcı Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nil Korkut Naykı (METU, FLE) Assist. Prof. Dr. Elif Öztabak Avcı (METU, FLE) Assist. Prof. Dr. Selen Aktari Sevgi (Başkent Uni., AMER) I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name : Meltem Ateş Signature : iii ABSTRACT FROM POSTMODERNISM TO METAMODERNISM: CHANGING PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS IRONY AND METANARRATIVES IN JULIAN BARNES’S A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10 AND ½ CHAPTERS AND THE NOISE OF TIME Ates, Meltem M.A., English Literature Supervisor: Assist.
    [Show full text]
  • Slow Expansion. Neomodernism As a Postnational Tendency in Contemporary Cinema
    TRANSMISSIONS: THE JOURNAL OF FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES 2016, VOL.1, NO. 2, PP. 100-117. Miłosz Stelmach Jagiellonian University Slow Expansion. Neomodernism as a Postnational Tendency in Contemporary Cinema Abstract The article presents a theoretical overview of a distinctive strand of contemporary cinema identified in the text as neomodernism (as defined by Rafał Syska). It focuses on works of filmmakers such as Béla Tarr, Aleksander Sokurov or Tsai Ming-liang and their followers and tries to present them as a part of informal postnational artistic movement developing in cinema from mid-90s onward. The aim of the article is to examine critically the journalistic and reductive category of slow cinema usually applied to auteurs mentioned above and propose term more burdened with cultural connotations and thus open for nuanced historical and theoretical studies. The particular attention is given to the international character of neomodernism that negates the traditional boundaries of national schools as well as the division of centre-periphery in world cinema shaped by the first wave of postwar modernist cinema. Neomodernism rather moves the notion of centre to the institutional level with the growing importance of festivals, film agents and public fund that take the place of production companies as the main actors in the transnational net of art-house cinema circulation. Key words: contemporary cinema, modernism, slow cinema, postnational cinema, neomodernism Introduction Over the course of the last two decades, the debate over cinema and modernism has taken the form of a dialectical struggle since two distinctive theoretical standpoints emerged, of which the more traditional and still dominant is rooted in art history and literary studies of the post-war years.
    [Show full text]
  • English Artist L
    ISSN 2616-7581 (Print) 2019 • 2(1) • 8-18 Питання культурології ISSN 2617-4030 (Online) ТЕОРІЯ ТА ІСТОРІЯ КУЛЬТУРИ Питання культурології ISSN 2410-1311 (Print) 2020 • 36 • 14-23 ISSN 2616-4264 (Online) DOI: 10.31866/2410-1311.36.2020.221039 UDC 008:[130.2:141.78 METAMODERNISM AS A CONCEPT OF CULTURAL STUDIES Iryna Petrova Doctor of Art Studies, Professor, ORCID: 0000-0002-8146-9200, e-mail: [email protected], Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 36, Ye. Konovaltsia St., Kyiv, Ukraine, 01133 For citation: Petrova, I. (2020). Metamodernism as a Concept of Cultural Studies. Issues in Cultural Studies, (36), 14-23. doi: https://doi.org/10.31866/2410-1311.36.2020.221039. Abstract The essence of metamodernism as a concept of cultural studies is analysed in the article. The article points out the expediency of conceptualization of the cultural features of the (post) postmodernism era, on the one hand, and the need to develop adequate approaches, different from the traditional ones, for the implementation of a cultural analysis of a new research direction and modern world trends, on the other. The purpose of the article deals with a critical understanding of metamodernism as a contemporary concept of cultural studies. Comparative, analytical, and systematic methods were used to achieve the research objectives. The application of these methods allows us to substantiate the intertextuality of traditional cultural strategies that encourage the creation of a new discursive field; to “read” the changing and unpredictable cultural processes of the 21st century; to analyse the significant issues of metamodernism in the context of the relevance of the present-day needs.
    [Show full text]
  • Moving on to the Past
    Moving on to the Past Metamodernism in Neo-Victorian Biofiction MA Thesis Rozemarijn Zwitser MA Literary Studies: European Literature First Supervisor: Dr. D. Kersten Second Supervisor: Dr. C.J.J. Louttit 1 October 2020 Zwitser | 4361741 | 2 ABSTRACT Door Metamodernisme in drie neo-Victoriaanse bioficties te bestuderen, toont dit onderzoek aan dat het Metamodernisme begrepen kan worden als een culturele logica die zowel verder gaat van als voortbeweegt met het Postmodernisme. Daarnaast beargumenteert deze scriptie hoe hedendaagse neo-Victoriaanse biofictie met de inherente Postmodernistische kwaliteiten van pastiche en hyperrealiteit niet langer enkel als Postmodernistisch kan worden geïnterpreteerd. De bioficties in dit onderzoek demonstreren hoe deze kwaliteiten als Metamodernistisch kunnen worden geïnterpreteerd. De resultaten van dit onderzoek tonen aan dat een academische re-evaluatie van ‘rewriting’ aan de orde is. Het onderzoek vult een leemte in het academische veld van biofictie, neo-Victorian studies, en Metamodernisme, omdat een dergelijk onderzoek waarbij deze drie aspecten worden gecombineerd nog niet heeft plaatsgevonden. Daarnaast biedt deze scriptie ook een mogelijke methode die in vervolgonderzoek naar Metamodernisme in hedendaagse literatuur kan worden overgenomen en geperfectioneerd. KEY WORDS Metamodernism, neo-Victorianism, biofiction, Modernism, Postmodernism, rewriting Zwitser | 4361741 | 3 CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Metamodernism As We Perceive It (Quick Review)
    European Scientific Journal December 2013 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.2 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 METAMODERNISM AS WE PERCEIVE IT (QUICK REVIEW) Dali Kadagishvili, Full Prof. Grigol Robakidze University, Georgia Abstract Metamodernism is a new moment in philosophy, art, literature, fashion, photography, economics, politics and other spheres of human activities. It is expressed through variety of mindsets, practices, forms and genres. Its prerequisites were Modernist and Postmodernist movements, the roots of which were found in the early XIX and then in the midst of the XX century. Metamodernism comprises changes and oscillations in style and manner of thinking and behavior. The prefix meta is a term of Greek origin and means “after, between, beyond” that is Metamodernism is a movement that emerged and covered the period after Postmodernism. Its features completely distinguish from its predecessor: Metamodernism is serious, sincere, it oscillates from one polarity to another, between diametrically opposed ideas, like enthusiasm and irony, naivety and knowingness, totality and fragmentation, bright and plain and so on, whereas Postmodernism is playful, insincere, unsteady and ironic. Robin van den Akker and Timotheus Vermeulen, the researchers from the Netherlands, describe Metamodernism as a nonstop action, a “constant repositioning” between position and mindsets, something like a “pendulum swinging” between the above mentioned polarities. The article is a quick review of identity of Metamodernism in culture, particularly, in poetry and architecture, as these fields give an easier chance to see the characteristic features of the movement and its results in the development of the XXI century culture more distinctly. Keywords: Modernism, postmodernism, metamodernism, surrealism, oscillate Introduction: Metamodernism combines elements of modernism and postmodernism as the prerequisites of it were Modernist and Postmodernist movements, which substantially contributed to the formation of current metamodernist tendency.
    [Show full text]
  • Alluring Anamodernist: Action, Idea, Attitude, Pre-Concept, Concept, Form and Medium
    Volume 3, Issue 4, 2020 ISSN: 2617-9938 DOI: https://doi.org/10.31058/j.ad.2020.34008 Alluring Anamodernist: Action, Idea, Attitude, Pre-concept, Concept, Form and Medium Lepota Lazar Cosmo1* 1 Independent Scholar, New York, NY, USA Email Address [email protected] (Lepota Luba Cosmo) *Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 8 January 2020; Accepted: 1 September 2020; Published: 10 November 2020 Abstract: In the new, anamodernist tendencies, the contextualization of art, the contextualization of acts and processes, the tendency that emerged in performance and interactive art (eg, active performance then participatory performance) its reliable affirmation found in relational art, which has transformed this multi-ferential, in collaboration with installation, instructional art, place art, public media art, turned into one complex relationship. Development of art, out-institutional, out-of-place, transitive, non-conformist. Or in the example of an adversive act of non exhibit, a non-arbitrated act, a parallel and a counter-act, an out-exhibit that can only derive its meaning from a non-exhibit, non-event, event, etc. A work of art is not an object, but a multiactive variable, the ultimate product of experience, perception, presentation, publicity, interaction, positioning. The work does not have to exist, for an artist to exist, form does not have to exist, and even activity itself understood as interactivity with objects does not have to exist. Activity (more precisely, actions, ideas) the object-concept, relation, and actor (the viewer, not the interpretation). Work exists as action, idea, attitude, concept, pre-concept, pre-context. Form, activity, medium, object. Interaction has a long-lasting and mutual value; it is not the work that is produced but the interaction, not the means, but the effect.
    [Show full text]
  • TOWARDS TRANSMODERNISM: Transcendence, Technospirituality, and Technoculture
    TOWARDS TRANSMODERNISM: Transcendence, Technospirituality, and Technoculture Felicity Van Rysbergen (B.A. Hons, University of Melbourne) Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2011 Journalism and Media Research Centre The University of New South Wales 2 ABSTRACT This thesis argues that the pervasive merging of technocultural and sacred metaphors uncovers a longstanding Western tradition of inscribing the technologically new with the language of mysticism – a transcendental excess that underlies the logic of late capitalist notions of progress and evolution. By claiming that the transcendent moment has utterly saturated our technological desires, preserving an originary sense of the sacred at the inventive heart of science and technology, it sees this ‘technocultural transcendence’ as a model for thinking about an ironic return of grand narratives like metaphysics, truth, and the absolute, used wittingly to revitalise theory just as its last gasp has (perhaps prematurely) been proclaimed. The thesis therefore also seeks to theorise an emerging ‘transmodernity,’ or the post of postmodernism, through critical cultural readings of key transcendent myths in technoculture – Italian Futurism (art), cyberpunk (science fiction), cyberfeminism (film and performance art), and Integral theory (secular transformative spirituality). Each chapter offers examples of how the twinned concepts of transcendence and technology help create the conditions for the emergence of transmodernism, and works to provide potential examples of a resulting transmodern methodology in action. Throughout this thesis, the burgeoning desire for reconstructing what was once deconstructed, fragmented, and disavowed is examined, not to simply return past foci of theoretical enquiry to the margins or the marginalised to the centre, but to reveal the primary message of transmodernism – that both deconstruction and reconstruction hold equal significance on a continuum of understanding socio-cultural change.
    [Show full text]
  • Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
    Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology Special Issue Artefacts in Analytic Metaphysics Wybo Houkes and Pieter Vermaas, Special Issue Editors Techné Spring 2009 Volume 13, Number 2 Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology Editor-in-Chief Joseph C. Pitt, Virginia Tech Editors Peter-Paul Verbeek, University of Twente Pieter Vermaas, Delft University of Technology Book Review Editor Tom Staley, Virginia Tech Managing Editor Ashley Shew, Virginia Tech Special Issue Editors Wybo Houkes, Eindhoven Univ. of Technology Pieter Vermaas, Delft University of Technology Special Issue: Artefacts in Analytic Metaphysics CONTENTS WYBO HOUKES and PIETER E. VERMAAS, Artefacts in Analytic Metaphysics: Introduction 74 LYNNE RUDDER BAKER, The Metaphysics of Malfunction 82 MARZIA SOAVI, Antirealism and Artefact Kinds 93 MASSIMILIANO CARRARA, Relative Identity and the Number of Artifacts 108 WYBO HOUKES and PIETER E. VERMAAS, Produced to Use: Combining Two Key Intuitions on the Nature of Artefacts 123 PAWEL GARBACZ,What is an Artefact Design? 137 ULRICH KROHS, Structure and Coherence of Two-Model- Descriptions of Technical Artefacts 150 BOOK REVIEWS 162 Techné 13:2 Spring 2009 Houkes and Vermaas, Introduction/74 Artefacts in Analytic Metaphysics: Introduction Wybo Houkes Department of Philosophy and Ethics of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology and Pieter E. Vermaas Department of Philosophy, Delft University of Technology Keywords: artefacts; analytic philosophy; metaphysics Artefacts increasingly become the subject of philosophical attention. In our field of philosophy of technology, they obviously already held centre stage, most notably in, for instance, the work of Don Ihde (1990), of Peter-Paul Verbeek (2005) and in the Delft Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts research program (Kroes and Meijers 2002, 2006).
    [Show full text]
  • Digimodernistlik Eesti Kirjanik Piret Viires
    doi:10.7592/methis.v8i11.999 Digimodernistlik eesti kirjanik Piret Viires Postmodernismi lõpp ja post-postmodernism Arutledes 21. sajandi esimese kümnendi, nullindate eesti kirjanduse üle, ei saa kõrvale jätta probleemistikku, mis on seotud postmodernismi, selle eeldatava lõpu ja sellele järgneva kultuurisituatsiooni kirjeldamise ja määratlemisega (vt ka Viires 2010: 280–282). Mitmed uurijad on 21. sajandi alguse kultuurisituatsiooni kirjeldades leidnud, et 20. sajandi viimase kolmandiku kõige mõjukam intellektuaalne vool – postmodernism – on „languse staadiumis“ ja „moest väljas“ (López, Potter 2001: 4). On arvatud, et postmodernistlik teooria on end ammendanud ja 21. sajandi alguseks ei suuda postmodernism kaasaegset maailma enam adekvaatselt kirjeldada ja vaja on midagi uut. Seda toetab ka fakt, et postmodernse ajastu lõppu on nähtud seoses terrorirünnakuga World Trade Centeri kaksiktornidele 11. septembril 2001. See terrorirünnak seadis kahtluse alla postmodernse pluralismi ja relatiivsuse ja tõstis uuesti kilbile sellised väärtused nagu tõde, moraal, eetika, riik ja teised suured narratiivid (vt ka Viires 2008: 95–96). Postmodernistliku teooria sobivuse tänapäeva kultuurisituatsiooni kirjeldamiseks on kahtluse alla seadnud ka selle teooria algsed loojad ise. Tuntud postmodernismi teoreetik Linda Hutcheon on kuulutanud postmodernismi 20. sajandi fenomeniks ja öelnud väga selgelt: „Ütleme lihtsalt välja: see on läbi“ (Hutcheon 2002: 166). Mis tuleb aga pärast postmodernismi? Selle küsimuse üle on viimasel kümnendil aktiiv- selt arutletud (vt nt Stierstorfer 2003, Rudaitytė 2008). Näiteks tõstab Josh Toth esile 1991. aastal toimunud Stuttgardi kultuuriuuringute seminari pealkirjaga „Postmodernismi lõpp: uued suunad“ („The End of Postmodernism. New Directions“) ja leiab, et just see seminar oli märgiline üritus, millega pitseeriti postmodernismi saatus (Toth 2010: 2) ja millest alates on arutletud enamasti selle üle, mis on postmodernismile järgnenud.
    [Show full text]
  • 161 Performance Art, Performativity And
    Art Inquiry. Recherches sur les arts 2016, vol. XVIII ISSN 1641-9278 / e - ISSN 2451-0327161 Paulina Sztabińska Department of History of Art, University of Łódź [email protected] PERFORMANCE ART, PERFORMATIVITY AND THE ISSUE OF NEOMODERNISM Abstract: Body art and performance art are often discussed together, and even identified as the same thing. A careful analysis of these artistic trends and the accompanying theoretical commentary tends, however, to highlight their differences. Body art turns out to be a phenomenon manifesting significant similarity to the modernist conception of art in the spirit similar to the concept of Clement Greenberg, while performance art largely rejects these assumptions. Performative aesthetics developed by Erika Fischer-Lichte on the one hand stems from challenging modernist artistic essentialism, but on the other emphasizes the role of “the radical concept of presence” of the artist. The article presents a detailed analysis of two new creative achievements of Marina Abramović, the artist associated both with body art and performance art: Seven Easy Pieces (2005) and The Artist is Present (2010). The indicated ambiguity of performance art has been radicalized in their case. They combine the modernist emphasis on authenticity, presence, and essentialism with the postmodern penchant for citing. The phenomenon of pastiche described by Frederic Jameson has been transformed in such a way that it is no longer empty but takes over the whole of the performer’s self. The term “neomodern” is used today in a variety of meanings. The issues discussed in the article suggest the possibility of understanding it as overcoming the oppositions characteristic of modernism and postmodernism, while maintaining some of the features of these two trends regarding their respective approaches to art.
    [Show full text]
  • Slow Expansion. Neomodernism As a Postnational Tendency in Contemporary Cinema
    TRANSMISSIONS: THE JOURNAL OF FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES 2016, VOL.1, NO. 2, PP. 100-117. Miłosz Stelmach Jagiellonian University Slow Expansion. Neomodernism as a Postnational Tendency in Contemporary Cinema Abstract The article presents a theoretical overview of a distinctive strand of contemporary cinema identified in the text as neomodernism (as defined by Rafał Syska). It focuses on works of filmmakers such as Béla Tarr, Aleksander Sokurov or Tsai Ming-liang and their followers and tries to present them as a part of informal postnational artistic movement developing in cinema from mid-90s onward. The aim of the article is to examine critically the journalistic and reductive category of slow cinema usually applied to auteurs mentioned above and propose term more burdened with cultural connotations and thus open for nuanced historical and theoretical studies. The particular attention is given to the international character of neomodernism that negates the traditional boundaries of national schools as well as the division of centre-periphery in world cinema shaped by the first wave of postwar modernist cinema. Neomodernism rather moves the notion of centre to the institutional level with the growing importance of festivals, film agents and public fund that take the place of production companies as the main actors in the transnational net of art-house cinema circulation. Key words: contemporary cinema, modernism, slow cinema, postnational cinema, neomodernism Introduction Over the course of the last two decades, the debate over cinema and modernism has taken the form of a dialectical struggle since two distinctive theoretical standpoints emerged, of which the more traditional and still dominant is rooted in art history and literary studies of the post-war years.
    [Show full text]
  • The Real but Greatly Exaggerated Death of Postmodernism Steve
    The real but greatly exaggerated death of Postmodernism Steve Hanson Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK Abstract This paper tracks the managing-out of Postmodernism in UK universities, before casting doubt on the tendency to declare its death. Firstly, Postmodernism's current status as 'geist' is defined and the question is put as to whether Postmodernity is dead in the university. I use Google Ngrams and data from the main three academic libraries I am affiliated to in order to broadly answer in the positive. That the collapse of Postmodernism maps out on the crash of 2008 suggests that Postmodernism's 'geist bubble' may have been enabled by access to credit, by a finance bubble. However, the paper then describes the emergent academic terms 'post-postmodern', 'after- modern', 'neomodernism', 'Metamodernism' and the 'New Sincerity' - suggested new paradigms coming after Postmodernism - critically, as they are all rooted in Postmodern theory or postmodern culture, for instance the writing of Fredric Jameson and David Foster Wallace. I argue that we need to attempt a new re-orientation rather than over-arching terms for a new era which has barely shown its shape yet. We are not in a position to fully diagnose what comes after Postmodernism is managed out of academia, although clearly there are ramifications for the study of culture broadly. Playing advocatus diaboli I suggest that it would be better to reconsider terms such as False Consciousness than to float new signifiers over the current interregnum. Nobody knows what is opening up and nobody knows 279 | P a g e The real but greatly exaggerated death of Postmodernism what to do about it.
    [Show full text]